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Most quotes for domestic jobs are lost in the gap between looking at the work and sending the price. The customer asks three trades. One never gets back to them, one sends a number in a text three days later, and one sends a proper quote that evening. You can guess who gets the call.
WhatsApp is where that race is won, because it is where the customer already is. Here is how to send a quote there that reads like a business rather than a guess.
Why a price in a message is not enough
“£6,500 for the roof” tells the customer one thing: a number to compare with the other number they got. Nothing about what they are buying.
A written quote does three jobs a message cannot:
- It shows what is included. Scaffolding, waste, materials, making good. The other quote that came in £400 cheaper usually leaves something out, and the only way the customer can see that is if yours lists it.
- It protects you. If the price assumed the existing timbers are sound, that goes in writing before you start, not in an argument halfway through.
- It gets forwarded. Jobs are often decided by someone who was not in when you called round. A PDF gets passed on. A message in a chat does not.
Two ways to answer the same enquiry
A price in a message
- Looked at the job
- "About 6.5k" sent Sunday
- Compared on price alone
Cheapest quote wins
A written quote
- Looked at the job
- Branded PDF sent same day
- Forwarded to the family
Judged on what is included
What to put in a quote
The parts of a quote that wins work
-
Your details
Business name, logo, phone, email, address. VAT number if you are registered.
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Their details
Customer name and the job address, so there is no confusion later.
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A quote number and date
Q-0042, and the date you priced it.
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The work, line by line
What you strip out, what you fit, what materials, what access. This is the part that wins the job.
-
The price
Clear, and say whether VAT is included or added.
-
What is not included
Anything you would charge extra for: rotten timbers, asbestos, parking, a skip on a permit.
-
How long it is valid
Thirty days is normal. Material prices move.
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What happens next
How to accept, what deposit you need, rough start date.
The line by line part is where most trades undersell themselves. Compare these two quotes for the same job:
| Weak | Strong |
|---|---|
| Re-roof, £6,500 | Erect and fix scaffolding |
| Strip all existing coverings, felt and battens | |
| Dispose of all waste materials, skip hire included | |
| Install new breathable roofing underlay | |
| Fix new treated tanalised battens | |
| Lay new concrete interlocking tiles | |
| Re-bed and point ridge and hip tiles | |
| £6,500 plus VAT |
Same job, same price. The second one is obviously worth the money.
The message that goes with it
Keep the message short. The PDF does the explaining.
Hi Sarah, thanks for having me round this morning. Quote attached for the re-roof at 14 Beech Road, £6,500 plus VAT, all in including scaffolding and waste. It holds for 30 days. Happy to talk anything through, and if you want to go ahead I can get you in the diary for early next month.
That is the whole thing: what it is, what it costs, what it includes, how long it stands and what happens next.
Sending it as a PDF from your phone
The reason trades send prices as messages is not laziness, it is that writing a proper quote used to mean a laptop and half an hour.
That has changed. You can now describe the job out loud on WhatsApp and get the written quote back as a branded PDF, in the same chat, before you have left the street.
NorthBot does this. You send a voice note, it writes up the work using the standard steps for your trade, shows you a summary with every line numbered, and you tell it what to change. Say “send it” and the branded PDF arrives, ready to forward to your customer.
When the job is done, “invoice the Whitfield quote” turns it into an invoice without you typing any of it again.
A quote or an estimate?
Worth being clear which you are sending, because they are not the same thing.
- A quote is a fixed price. Once it is accepted, that is the price, unless the work itself changes.
- An estimate is a best guess for work you cannot pin down yet, like chasing a leak or anything behind a wall.
If you genuinely cannot price the job until you open it up, say so and call it an estimate, with a day rate and an idea of the likely range. What loses trust is calling something a quote and then changing it.
Get the quote out while you are still on the drive
There is no clever trick to winning more work. Price it fairly, write it up properly, and send it before the other two trades have got round to it.
If the writing up is the part that slips, NorthBot will do it from a voice note: quotes and invoices over WhatsApp, branded PDFs, card payment links, CIS reverse charge VAT. Included with our Growth and Pro plans, or £39.99 a month on its own with a 14-day free trial and no card to start.
Next: how to send an invoice on WhatsApp, and the WhatsApp invoicing tools worth knowing about.